


More Than in My Dreams

by dairyme



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Dreams, Friendship, M/M, Pre-Series, Pre-Slash, Savoy, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Sleeptalking, Spooning, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 21:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2084142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dairyme/pseuds/dairyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>There was something keeping him here, and it was not merely the pleasure of Porthos’s company.</i>
</p><p>Obligatory post-Savoy, Aramis-is-repressing-his-issues fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than in My Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Just a flimsy, self-indulgent, highly tropey, swiftly-written, under-edited thing I cobbled together when I realised I hadn't done any Aramis/Porthos or anything with a Savoy flashback: a terrible oversight.
> 
> Based on an idea from [Mackem](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mackem/pseuds/Mackem), as are all my stories these days, and without whose encouragement I'd probably never write or post anything at all.
> 
> So blame her.

Aramis jolted upright in his chair the second Porthos placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re falling asleep, there.”

Aramis looked up at him, attempting to blink his eyes into focus. “Yes. Forgive me. It’s not that I don’t find your conversation fascinating.”

“You haven’t been listening to my conversation for the past ten minutes.” Porthos smiled, and squeezed his shoulder. “It’s late, anyway.”

Truthfully, Porthos would happily have retired for the night some time earlier, had Aramis’s reluctance to leave not been so obvious. It was not anything he had said – he probably thought he was being quite subtle about it – but there had been several opportunities for him to go, and he had determinedly ignored each one.

He could never begrudge spending time with Aramis, of course, but his friend had never before seemed so unwilling to return to his own home. There was something keeping him here, and it was not merely the pleasure of Porthos’s company.

“You’re right,” Aramis admitted with a sigh. “I’m keeping you up.”

Porthos followed his gaze to the window. The snow that had been threatening all day had finally begun to fall just before they arrived at Porthos’s lodgings. Those few small flakes drifting on the chill breeze had now become a heavy, persistent flurry, already collecting in smooth piles at the corners of the window frame.

He turned back to Aramis. There was a tightness in his expression that Porthos might have put down to tiredness, had his behaviour throughout the evening not been so peculiarly tense. “Not sure you want to go out in that, though.” Aramis looked up at him expectantly, and Porthos kept his tone carefully casual when he added, “You could stay here, if you want.”

Aramis appeared conflicted, as if he felt he should decline for politeness’ sake but couldn’t quite bring himself to go through with it. “If you don’t mind,” he said eventually, quietly, and as grateful as Porthos had ever heard him.

The bed had clearly not been designed to accommodate two full grown men, but Porthos was used to sleeping in close quarters with others – often far more cramped and unpleasant than this – and with his years as a soldier he assumed it was nothing new to Aramis either. With only a little manoeuvring they came to an agreeable arrangement, allowing Porthos to lie in his usual position on his back, Aramis curled on his side facing away from him.

Porthos did not know how long he had been asleep when he woke to find Aramis shivering. He still had his back to him, his shoulders hunched, and clutching the blanket so tightly he threatened to pull it off Porthos entirely.

“You should’ve said if you were cold,” he mumbled, still bleary and slightly irritated both at being woken and at what he took to be his friend’s stubbornness. Receiving no response, he turned to place a hand on Aramis’s arm.

Given the violence of his shaking, Porthos was surprised not to find the skin colder, though of course this didn’t mean Aramis wasn’t feeling the chill. It was certainly cold enough for a nightshirt, Porthos guessed, though he never bothered with one himself. He knew that others thought he didn’t feel the cold, but this was not strictly true: it was simply that he had survived twenty-six Parisian winters living in the bleakest slums of the city, and compared to that a comfortable, heavily blanketed bed in a room where shuttered windows kept out the worst of the draught felt practically balmy.

But it made sense that Aramis, who Porthos knew to have grown up in the warmer south, and who had chosen, like him, to remove his shirt to sleep, would feel the low temperature when he did not. 

He attempted to pull the blanket from Aramis’s grasp in order to rearrange it over his bare shoulders, but when he did Aramis made a sound that was so unexpectedly distressed it caused Porthos to stop immediately. He put a hand on his arm again instead, rubbing up and down in the hope that it would either calm the shivering or wake him up.

It did neither. It did, however, lead Aramis to lean into him subtly, until his back touched Porthos’s chest. Almost instinctively, Porthos slid his arm round Aramis’s middle and pulled him close.

He had held people like this for warmth on countless occasions, and he was unsure why he had hesitated so long to do it for Aramis. Perhaps because all those previous occasions had been _before_ – another life, when the rules were different, when _he_ was different – and perhaps he was uncertain about whether this was a liberty he could take with Aramis yet, or ever. But whatever his reservations, it seemed to work, some of the tension leaving Aramis’s body almost immediately, even if the shivering did not stop.

Porthos closed his eyes, automatically tuning in to the sound and feel of Aramis’s breathing, the strange comfort of it gradually synchronising with his own. He was half way back to sleep when he felt Aramis tense again, and twist abruptly in his hold. He opened his eyes to find Aramis looking at him over his shoulder.

“Help me cover their faces,” he said.

Only the slightly slurred speech and the oddness of the words themselves told him that Aramis was still asleep. He had held Porthos’s eye quite steadily, and his voice, though a little raspy, was fully coherent. Porthos was not easily spooked, but he had to admit the overall effect was disconcerting.

Before he could think how to respond, Aramis turned back to his original position. Unable to see his face, Porthos startled when he spoke again.

“I need to make a fire.”

Porthos wrapped his arm tighter around him. “I’m keeping you warm, Aramis.” He didn’t know if Aramis was able to comprehend him, but he thought if there was even a chance his words could soothe, it was worth a try.

“It’s freezing,” said Aramis, sounding frustrated.

Porthos couldn’t tell if it was in answer to him, or even if it was true – if Aramis truly was cold, or only in whatever dream he was trapped in. He felt warm where their skin touched. Even so, Porthos rubbed his palm briskly along the outside of Aramis’s arm, the top of his chest, any part of him uncovered by the blanket that he could easily reach, before taking him in hold again.

It seemed as if Aramis might settle, then, his breathing slowing and his body relaxing against Porthos. But barely a minute later he was moving again, shifting awkwardly and, to Porthos’s horror, emitting a quiet, unhappy whimper that tailed off into something not far from a sob. 

“Please…” he said, voice sleepy still but laced with desperation. His fingers wrapped around Porthos’s wrist and held on with unnerving strength. “Don’t leave me here alone.”

“I won’t,” said Porthos, not realising until he spoke quite how fiercely he meant it. “I promise.” 

Aramis let go of his wrist and twined their fingers together instead, the action clumsy but determined. It was coordinated enough that Porthos thought he must be awake, or on the very edge of it, and he seriously considered pulling away, aware that Aramis might be embarrassed once he came to his senses.

Before he could, Aramis was leaning into him, holding their joined hands against his stomach and fitting his body perfectly along Porthos’s. He let out a long, relieved breath, a sigh that turned into speech. “I knew you wouldn’t.”

And Porthos knew then, for certain, that he was talking to someone else. Aramis pressed against him like a man seeking comfort, but there was more to it than that, more than their rapidly established friendship could account for, an unmistakeable intimacy that they did not share.

Porthos shifted his hips back, carefully creating some small distance between them, willing his body not to betray him, not to betray Aramis. Other than that he stayed as still as possible, even when Aramis half turned to nuzzle briefly at his neck, before settling and lapsing into silence.

Porthos knew, deep down, where Aramis was in his nightmares, but forced himself not to dwell on it. They were things it was not his place to know, words he had not been meant to hear. Instead he concentrated his attention on Aramis as he was now, relaxing by degrees as he remained still, and quiet, and warm in his arms.

He woke to fingers tight on his wrist again. Aramis was on his back, looking at him with an unreadable expression. As soon as he realised he had Porthos’s attention, he raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

“You were cold,” said Porthos, overly aware of Aramis’s grip on his wrist, and all the other places their skin still touched. “Remember?”

Aramis continued to stare at him. Porthos was about to explain further, if only to break the silence, when he spoke.

“Yes,” he said, and the lie was obvious. He was still watching Porthos’s face, and Porthos wondered what he was searching for there. “Thank you.”

Porthos nodded and tried to extricate his hand, but Aramis’s hold remained firm.

“I still might be.” He was refusing to break eye contact, but Porthos could feel, where his arm rested on Aramis’s chest, his heart speed up just a fraction. “Cold, that is. There are still a few hours before we have to get up.”

Without waiting for Porthos to answer he shifted onto his side, facing away, pulling Porthos’s arm around his waist.

“All right?” He didn’t turn round when he spoke.

Porthos smiled and shuffled closer. “Be quiet,” he said, into Aramis’s hair, “and go back to sleep.”


End file.
